Strange
by PinkOkapi
Summary: Shelly Rainsworth looked like your average lady from a rich and powerful family. Elegant, always smiling. But everything else about her was strange. Her strangeness rubbed off on him too.


This story has been sitting around in a dusty corner of my laptop for the past 2 years, since I last finished reading Pandora Hearts. My memories of the exact content are fuzzy but I remember loving the entire concept and many of its characters. I was an avid shipper of Break x Shelly then (still shipping now), so here's my very belated story for the two of them. I hope I didn't get any of the details too wrong, because it has really really been long since I last read it.

* * *

Since he began working as a valet in his early years, as Kevin Legnard, Xerxes had the chance to meet many beautiful women in his life. Demure, well-mannered ones in their frilly summer dresses to the intelligent and well learnt ladies in their alluring evening gowns, it could be said that Xerxes had more than his fair share of women in his life. Yet, never once did it cross his mind that he was interested in any of them.

He took his job as their valet seriously, he was loyal to each person he protected in the Sinclair family and even to their less powerful branch members. Despite his efforts, there were occasions when some tried to offer him more, usually as an easy way out from stiff family politics, there was one who was serious, but he declined them all. Not that it was a bad idea anyway, those relationships usually ended in bloodshed. It was tumultuous times after all and inter-class relationships were a taboo.

His single-minded goal was to be a good valet, and he succeeded tremendously. He was hardworking, but he was also extremely talented at the job. Many people recommended him and offered him generous tips which eventually paved his path to the youngest knight in the history of the Sinclair family. It was there where he met the young mistress. Her bright personality and innocence was what brought him a little out of his shell of professionalism. He swore on his life that he would do anything to protect that smile. He succeeded, until he let her die. _Twice._ Horribly. His fist clenched at that memory. He would never forgive himself for that.

For the longest time, guilt and desperation gnawed at his sanity as his life spiralled into chaos. Forming an Illegal Contract with Albus the White Knight, turning into the Red-Eyed Specter, plunging into the Abyss and losing his eye. One wrong choice just led to a bigger wrong and at the end, he found himself further away from redemption than where he started.

And just when he thought he would be granted the respite of death, he found himself back at the surface again in another time period. It was like as if the heavens were playing a sick joke on him.

Didn't he already have his share of misfortune? Fucking hell, just let him die already.

How much he had changed, in the mere three months since he met Shelly.

.

.

.

His first impressions, and the many that came after, were that she was _strange_. Her demeanor reminded him of many of the nobles that he had served before - elegant, always smiling and polite. But everything else, he found strange.

Their first encounter was strange. She took him in as her valet way too readily. Him, a suspicious man who randomly appeared in her garden, out of the abyss nonetheless. Out of pity, out of kindness, he wasn't sure. After he became her valet, she never demanded anything of him, other than forcing him along her tea parties, requesting for him to babysit her daughter or help Reim with menial tasks. All of which, could be handled by anyone else in the family, so he wasn't sure why it had to be him.

He wasn't sure why she never asked about his past even till now, although as a member of the Pandora, she certainly knew that it wasn't normal for people to come in and out of the abyss just like that. All the other valets he met in the Rainsworth family seemed to have earned their places here, or gotten in through so sort of important connections, while he hadn't.

In fact, he wasn't even sure when he converted from just a stranger to the house, to an official valet for the Rainsworth to now Shelly's personal valet. It just sort of happened.

Her _strangeness _rubbed off on him too.

When she was questioned by others about why she had assigned a complete stranger as her personal valet, he wasn't sure why she valiantly defended his position and insisted he was the strongest and therefore most worthy person in the mansion to be her bodyguard, dismissing all legitimate suspicions others had about his origins. He wasn't sure why he knocked out ten of her original bodyguards to help prove her point, earning him a flower crown from Sharon.

And perhaps the strangest occurrence of them all, was that he didn't mind being caught up in this web of uncertainty, as long as she was smiling. For a man who was always pining after some faraway goal, of becoming the best valet in the Sinclair family, of trying to undo the past. It never mattered to him what happened in between, as long as he arrived at his objective. Since when did he change?

Living his second life sure was strange and uncertain in a myriad of ways but if there was one thing that he stood clear as day when he took down the last of Shelly's ex-bodyguards. He wanted to be here in the Rainsworth family. More specifically, he wanted to be with her, Shelly Rainsworth. It was a kind of heartfelt, and reckless even, desire that he had never experienced before and he surprised himself with the intensity of his feelings.

He had never felt this attached to any of his former mistresses, not even the little Sinclair. It wasn't like him to have irrational desires. He served them, he was loyal to them. He was their knight, but take away his armour and there would be nothing else that elicited any form of further attachment between them. He wasn't rude, he was only professional.

But with Shelly, he _felt_ completely different. Everytime she laughed, he could feel his stomach flip. When she approached, his heart thump a little faster. He felt his eyes linger on her retreating figure whenever they part, no matter he saw her almost everyday.

It was strange, but a good kind of strange.

.

.

.

From the moment he realised that the Rainsworth family was a place he wanted to stay at, he also knew that he had to tell them -– where he came from, who he really was, how he got here from the Abyss, everything. He was a catalyst for disaster, both an Illegal Contractor and a Child of Misfortune, and he didn't want to see anyone suffer because of him again. He couldn't bring himself to leave the mansion, so he was banking on them to kick him out. Even the most compassionate of people would be willing to harbour a criminal, a serial killer nonetheless.

Although he made the resolution to himself to tell them the truth, for the following days, he hesitated. He never found the "right" time to do so, and he was fearful of how they would react to him. How _she _might react. Anger he could handle. But what if she was repulsed by his very existence, of all the wrong choices he made in his life?

The worry must have showed on his face because two weeks later, when Sharon was away with Sheryl and Reim busy in his office doing paperwork, she asked him. "Xerxes, is there something on your mind? You can tell me anything, you know."

"Anything, huh," he said, his mouth curving into a sad smile. She nodded, looking at him expectantly. So he told her.

.

.

.

"Thanks for telling me, Xerxes. That must have taken a lot of courage." Shelly said with a smile.

That was not the response he was expecting.

"I kind of guessed," seeing his incredulous expression, she smiled and continued.

"Where do I even begin with this? You might have heard from Reim already, but I have a very powerful ability. The reason why I get to do whatever I want here and everyone, even the Pandora, listens to what I say. I have the innate ability to feel people's energy. Something like an aura? Everyone has their own unique colours, temperatures and sometimes even smells. And this aura is usually telling of their personalities, characters, abilities and most important of them all, history. This ability is uncommon but it isn't unique, my mother can do it too and even Uncle Rufus kind of has it too. Usually, people can only feel this aura of one person at a time, and they have to be near the person. But me, I could sense everyone in the city at the same time, if I wanted to."

He had heard about such people born with special abilities when he was in the Sinclair family, but those stories were usually regarded as urban legends.

"So when the gate to the abyss first opened, I was the first one to notice your additional aura at the basement of our house. Even from afar, your aura was nothing like anything I've seen before. There was the smell of blood and the abyss, which smells like, no offense, Chains. It was also pulsing like an messy ball of fear, desperation, resentment, anger and so, so much sorrow. You seemed so angry at the world but so stricken with grief at the same time? The colour of your aura was red, a colour that I've never seen before, but has been said to belong to Children of of misfortune, bad omens, nothing good, basically. But even though you seemed so dangerous, I felt no malice when I got closer to you. Mother always said that I should use my believe in my gift, so I did. I took the chance and brought you in."

_So she already knew? What sort of value judgement was that, based on just her gut feeling that he had no malice? _

So many thoughts were running through his mind but he remained silent, too shocked to say anything.

"But I also wondered about what on earth happened to you? Whatever could a person have been through to turn out this way, especially when you look barely my age? My only clue was I saw the hilt of your sword that looked like something from the history books, I immediately delved into the libraries to research and I only linked you to the Sinclair family's tragedy last week. It was horrific. Xerxes, I'm sorry for acting like I knew better telling you to live in such a flippant manner, now that I know what you've been through. The opinion still stands, though."

_She's sorry? For what?_

"If you knew, then why? I'm..I'm a murderer!"

"Why didn't I kick you out? No particular reason? You seemed happy here, and I had no right to take that away from anyone, right?"

She sounded genuinely puzzled. She was strange indeed, her justification to harbour a criminal made absolutely no sense.

But he was being strange too. His vision was blurry, and his cheeks were wet. When was the last time he cried?

"Eh? Did I say something wrong?" Shelly panicked, fumbling around with her handkerchief, trying to dab at his tears. "No, don't cry. If you cry, I'll cry too!" She exclaimed, her own eyes welling up.

Allowing himself a brief display of affection, he returned her gesture by cupping her face and brushing away her tears.

"Thank you, Shelly."

For showing me the light.

In return, I will protect everything you treasure with my life.


End file.
